"Oh what a tangled
web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
Sir Walter Scott
Fall 2003
Volume I,
issue 2
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"Oh what a tangled
web we weave, when first we practice to deceive." |
Fall 2003 |
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By publishing their magazines (including Behind the Mask & Action Adventure Stories, Detective Mystery Stories, and Echoes), Tom and Ginger Johnson over the last 20 years have shone new light on countless "lost" stories from the pulp heyday.
The Johnsons' website offers a wealth of information on pulp history. Direct correspondence to Virginia E. Johnson or to editor@lifeloom.com. |
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Pulp Magazines, a Dime-size History
In the early 1800s, with printing technology improving, newspapers became a part of life across America. So did fiction publications such as the so-called "story papers" and "magazine libraries" – the dime novels.
From 1830 to about 1920, the dime novels were the mass market paperbacks of the day. Usually about comic book size, extremely thin, bearing a black & white cover (although some cheap early color was experimented with), these books were priced at a nickel or a dime. Most notable of these dime novels were the westerns and the famous Nick Carter, Detective series. Perhaps good reading at the time, the stories are so dated as to be unreadable today (except by the occasional antiquarian).
However, in 1896, dime novel publisher Frank A. Munsey, who had started his famous Golden Argosy in 1882, decided on a bold venture – publishing his magazine on cheap woodpulp paper. This allowed him to publish a thicker magazine ... and the paper was adequate for the reproduction of art and – ads! Adding a color cover gave gave a brand new look which rocketed to a quick marketplace success; moreover, the larger magazine (now approximately 7x10 inches in size, and a quarter inch thick) could still carry a price tag of ten cents, thanks in big part to the ads inside the magazine. So, in 1896, Argosy became the first pulp magazine.
Other publishers quickly followed suit, giving the American readers adventure in the early 1900s, gangster stories in the Roaring Twenties, the classic heroes of the 1930s, and the great science fiction boom of the 1940s. (Of course, most genres had been present all along: science fiction, for example, appeared in pulp form in 1926.) Westerns, romance, adventure, and detective magazines flooded the marketplace as fast as publishers could get their product to the stands.
Although the dime novels held out to the 1920s, a period of almost a hundred years, the pulp magazines were not so long-lived. During WWII, a paper shortage struck the publishing industry hard, and many titles were discontinued, only the strongest surviving. To survive, pulps suddenly became thinner, and in some cases, sadly, were even reduced to digest size. By the early 1950s, trampled by comic books, television, and the paperback (called a pocket book because it fit nicely inside a pocket), the pulp magazine industry was moribund. After merely half a century, the pulps were dead, only remotely remembered by the many digest size magazines that were able to survive the changing times.
Copyright 2003 by Virginia E. Johnson
The Web Mystery Magazine is an on-line quarterly journal dedicated to investigating the mysterious genre in print, in film, and in real-life. The Web welcomes well-researched, well-written
articles and reviews. Writers are invited to send letters and inquiries to editor@lifeloom.com. "Oh what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive."
Sir Walter Scott